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Lord Ramage #10
The Ramage Touch
Post Captain Ramage is prowling the Tuscan coast and far from English aid when he encounters a daunting French invasion fleet. As the enemy gathers strength, Ramage must decide how to thwart its actions with only the frigate Calypso and a pair of bomb ketches.
270 pages, Paperback
First published October 29, 1979
52 people are currently reading
179 people want to read
About the author
Dudley Pope
130 books93 followersDudley Pope was born in Ashford, Kent.
By concealing his age, Pope joined the Home Guard aged 14 and at age 16 joined the Merchant Navy as a cadet. His ship was torpedoed the next year (1942). Afterwards, he spent two weeks in a lifeboat with the few other survivors.
After he was invalided out of the Merchant Navy, the only obvious sign of the injuries Pope had suffered was a joint missing from one finger due to gangrene. Pope then went to work for a Kentish newspaper, then in 1944 moved to The Evening News in London, where he was the naval and defence correspondent. From there he turned to reading and writing naval history.
Pope's first book, "Flag 4", was published in 1954, followed by several other historical accounts. C. S. Forester, the creator of the famed Horatio Hornblower novels, encouraged Pope to add fiction to his repertoire. In 1965, "Ramage" appeared, the first of what was to become an 18-novel series.
Pope took to living on boats from 1953 on; when he married Kay Pope in 1954, they lived on a William Fife 8-meter named Concerto, then at Porto Santo Stefano, Italy in 1959 with a 42-foot ketch Tokay. In 1963 he and Kay moved to a 53-foot cutter Golden Dragon, on which they moved to Barbados in 1965. In 1968 they moved onto a 54-foot wooden yacht named Ramage, aboard which he wrote all of his stories until 1985.
Pope died April 25, 1997 in Marigot, St. Martin. Both his wife and his daughter, Jane Victoria survived him.
By concealing his age, Pope joined the Home Guard aged 14 and at age 16 joined the Merchant Navy as a cadet. His ship was torpedoed the next year (1942). Afterwards, he spent two weeks in a lifeboat with the few other survivors.
After he was invalided out of the Merchant Navy, the only obvious sign of the injuries Pope had suffered was a joint missing from one finger due to gangrene. Pope then went to work for a Kentish newspaper, then in 1944 moved to The Evening News in London, where he was the naval and defence correspondent. From there he turned to reading and writing naval history.
Pope's first book, "Flag 4", was published in 1954, followed by several other historical accounts. C. S. Forester, the creator of the famed Horatio Hornblower novels, encouraged Pope to add fiction to his repertoire. In 1965, "Ramage" appeared, the first of what was to become an 18-novel series.
Pope took to living on boats from 1953 on; when he married Kay Pope in 1954, they lived on a William Fife 8-meter named Concerto, then at Porto Santo Stefano, Italy in 1959 with a 42-foot ketch Tokay. In 1963 he and Kay moved to a 53-foot cutter Golden Dragon, on which they moved to Barbados in 1965. In 1968 they moved onto a 54-foot wooden yacht named Ramage, aboard which he wrote all of his stories until 1985.
Pope died April 25, 1997 in Marigot, St. Martin. Both his wife and his daughter, Jane Victoria survived him.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 23, 2020
Ramage is given free reign in the medetarian to hamper the French. Through some spying (actually a weak part of the writing) he discovers a French plan but gets captured. Surprise surprise his trusty band of sailors rescue him ready to get our own back on the French, eventually sinking three frigates.
The story was alright and there wereparts of the ensuing sea chasethat I deeply enjoyed. I am starting to get annoyed with the constant recapping of previous parts if the story background, especially when it happens multiple times in the same book.
The story was alright and there wereparts of the ensuing sea chasethat I deeply enjoyed. I am starting to get annoyed with the constant recapping of previous parts if the story background, especially when it happens multiple times in the same book.
July 29, 2021
I'm reading Ramage in non-chronological order. I consider this series a poor man's Hornblower. Pope is not as skilled a writer as CSF but the writing is fairly easy to read. On the whole, they are more informative than HH and describes more information but Pope is a long writer like a long talker. He will uses pages of text for something which can be written much more compactly. As this is my first read through and I'm trying to get through all the books, I find some of it tedious. No doubt I will feel differently and I definitely feel I will re-read some of these books.
Summary/Spoilers below:
The book starts with Ramage in the Mediterranean with orders to cause as much havoc as possible. He comes across two French bomb ketches in the night on the coast of Italy. He anchors between them and captures both of them in the morning. He finds out that they are going to Porto Ercole (Tuscany) and decides to go there to see what their orders are.
Once there, he finds 3 frigates, obviously part of a small squadron. He goes ashore dressed as gypsies with Orsini and Martin to see if he can discover what their orders are from French officers lodging in the local inns. Instead they are found out as British spies and captured. But Paolo and Jackson free them.
Ramage uses the bomb ketches to attack the 3 frigates while they are loading men, horses and artillery. The ketches destroy two of them and the 3rd one escapes. They get into a stern chase where Ramage experiments with the trim of the Calypso to make it sail even faster. However the French frigate has been fatally damaged by the last bomb from the ketch. The bomb damaged some planks in the stern which opened up during the chase and sinks. Ramage rescues the French admiral and convinces him to tell him is his orders. The book ends here.
Spoilers end:
Quite a lot of action in this book and not a lot of boring parts. This was a fast read and quite enjoyable. Pope still has the habit of hero-worshiping Ramage where even the French officer who captures him spends some time thinking how handsome Ramage is, like he's considering him as an in-law, smh.
I enjoyed the description of the bomb ketches and how trimming the Calypso made it faster. I'm enjoying this series more the more I read it. In comparison, I liked Lewrie and Kydd less the more I read them. Lewrie was difficult to read to begin with and it got worse. I didn't even bother to finish that series.
Stockwin (Kydd) started including large amounts of historical material where historical figures acted out their historical decisions in text, which is something I could read in a history book or the wikipedia. I ended up fast reading those parts and finally just skipping them. In one book, there was only 2 short chapters on Kydd. Everything else was history.
Anyway, looking forward to reading the next book.
Summary/Spoilers below:
The book starts with Ramage in the Mediterranean with orders to cause as much havoc as possible. He comes across two French bomb ketches in the night on the coast of Italy. He anchors between them and captures both of them in the morning. He finds out that they are going to Porto Ercole (Tuscany) and decides to go there to see what their orders are.
Once there, he finds 3 frigates, obviously part of a small squadron. He goes ashore dressed as gypsies with Orsini and Martin to see if he can discover what their orders are from French officers lodging in the local inns. Instead they are found out as British spies and captured. But Paolo and Jackson free them.
Ramage uses the bomb ketches to attack the 3 frigates while they are loading men, horses and artillery. The ketches destroy two of them and the 3rd one escapes. They get into a stern chase where Ramage experiments with the trim of the Calypso to make it sail even faster. However the French frigate has been fatally damaged by the last bomb from the ketch. The bomb damaged some planks in the stern which opened up during the chase and sinks. Ramage rescues the French admiral and convinces him to tell him is his orders. The book ends here.
Spoilers end:
Quite a lot of action in this book and not a lot of boring parts. This was a fast read and quite enjoyable. Pope still has the habit of hero-worshiping Ramage where even the French officer who captures him spends some time thinking how handsome Ramage is, like he's considering him as an in-law, smh.
I enjoyed the description of the bomb ketches and how trimming the Calypso made it faster. I'm enjoying this series more the more I read it. In comparison, I liked Lewrie and Kydd less the more I read them. Lewrie was difficult to read to begin with and it got worse. I didn't even bother to finish that series.
Stockwin (Kydd) started including large amounts of historical material where historical figures acted out their historical decisions in text, which is something I could read in a history book or the wikipedia. I ended up fast reading those parts and finally just skipping them. In one book, there was only 2 short chapters on Kydd. Everything else was history.
Anyway, looking forward to reading the next book.
November 6, 2016
This was the fastest reading Ramage for me. Now don't get me wrong there was plenty of story in this one it just was fast paced. There was one place that I kind of saw it coming but that is no fault of the author it is just when you have read a lot you can guess what is going to happen. I mean see enough movies and the surprises in the plot just pop out that is the same for reading. I just enjoyed this one and that is what reading for pleasure is all about enjoyment.
December 30, 2022
I still enjoy this series, it is my go to when I need a break from work reading - at least until I finish all 18 books. Ramage and the crew are back in the Mediterranean with a mission that is basically to just screw with the French navy and as always it takes a turn. This book seemed a little slow at first but wrapped up quickly in the last few chapters as most of the battles do. These are well written and keep your attention all the way through.
June 19, 2021
A little long on description, especially the function of bomb ketches, and a little short on plot, but it does pick up at the end. Of course, Ramage’s opponents are all either highly stupid or highly unlucky, or both, because Ramage always prevails at the end, despite overwhelming odds against him. Still, an enjoyable book.
June 28, 2022
Ok Ramage book. Back from the Caribbean he is sent to attack French shipping in the Med. They encounter several bomb ketches. Ramage must try to find out the French plan and thwart it while keeping himself and his ship safe.
July 18, 2017
I liked this story, set in the Mediterranean when British ships weren't there! Lots of info on bomb ketches. Never realized they existed
December 15, 2020
Complete RUBBISH!
A real potboiler.
A real potboiler.
November 4, 2022
This almost felt like a filler between exciting events in Ramages life. Still a good filler.
March 31, 2021
As any reader of this series knows by now, Capt. Lord Nicholas Ramage makes a point, whenever possible, of using the opportunities and tools that come to hand in his continuing struggle against the French navy under Bonaparte. He does it in innovative ways, usually catching the enemy (and often his own people) by surprise. He also hates to lose men unnecessarily, so any inventive scheme that works to that end is also welcome. And his success is shown by his position as one of the youngest post captains on the Navy List.
A couple of books ago, Ramage captured a French frigate, undamaged and recently provisioned, which allowed him to pass himself off as an enemy vessel -- and to essentially capture the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao. Now the Admiralty has sent him off on a three-month cruise in the Mediterranean to create havoc and disrupt French operations in any way he can. The French lines of the Calypso, the French-pattern suit of sails, and a recently captured French signal book will allow him to work practically undercover. And almost the first contact he makes, off the coast of Tuscany, is with a pair of bomb ketches -- small, converted merchantmen, each slightly redesigned and re-outfitted to carry two ten-inch mortars. With a charge of up to eight or ten pounds of powder, such a weapon could hurl an explosive shell weighing nearly a hundred pounds for up to a mile, in a parabolic arc ideal for plunging fire behind walls and over hills. The ketches -- which Ramage, naturally, is able to grab without firing a shot -- are headed for Crete in company with a couple of frigates, where they are to join with other French naval elements in some kind of fleet. But where the highly secret operation is aimed, Ramage has no idea. Egypt, perhaps, where Bonaparte had already failed a couple of years before? Being fluent in Italian and French, he slips ashore to seek intelligence among the troops gathering to board the awaited frigates, but things don’t go well. Not to worry, however. And those mortars are going to come in very useful.
It’s not a bad yarn, though one gets the impression that the author had only recently studied up on bomb ketches and wanted to regurgitate everything had learned. The crew spends a lot of time explaining all the technology and specifications to each other for the benefit of the reader, which is always an awkward device. There’s also a good deal of other padding in order to bring the book up to respectable length. The other main problem is that, since this is an historical novel and not alternate history, the author can’t simply rewrite the major events of the war to suit his plot -- which requires that he basically throw away the point of all Ramage’s activities at the end of the story. Anyway, since it’s obvious the cruise is going to be continued in the next volume, his editor should have suggested Pope trim some of the fat and combine two or three sub-adventures into a single book.
A couple of books ago, Ramage captured a French frigate, undamaged and recently provisioned, which allowed him to pass himself off as an enemy vessel -- and to essentially capture the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao. Now the Admiralty has sent him off on a three-month cruise in the Mediterranean to create havoc and disrupt French operations in any way he can. The French lines of the Calypso, the French-pattern suit of sails, and a recently captured French signal book will allow him to work practically undercover. And almost the first contact he makes, off the coast of Tuscany, is with a pair of bomb ketches -- small, converted merchantmen, each slightly redesigned and re-outfitted to carry two ten-inch mortars. With a charge of up to eight or ten pounds of powder, such a weapon could hurl an explosive shell weighing nearly a hundred pounds for up to a mile, in a parabolic arc ideal for plunging fire behind walls and over hills. The ketches -- which Ramage, naturally, is able to grab without firing a shot -- are headed for Crete in company with a couple of frigates, where they are to join with other French naval elements in some kind of fleet. But where the highly secret operation is aimed, Ramage has no idea. Egypt, perhaps, where Bonaparte had already failed a couple of years before? Being fluent in Italian and French, he slips ashore to seek intelligence among the troops gathering to board the awaited frigates, but things don’t go well. Not to worry, however. And those mortars are going to come in very useful.
It’s not a bad yarn, though one gets the impression that the author had only recently studied up on bomb ketches and wanted to regurgitate everything had learned. The crew spends a lot of time explaining all the technology and specifications to each other for the benefit of the reader, which is always an awkward device. There’s also a good deal of other padding in order to bring the book up to respectable length. The other main problem is that, since this is an historical novel and not alternate history, the author can’t simply rewrite the major events of the war to suit his plot -- which requires that he basically throw away the point of all Ramage’s activities at the end of the story. Anyway, since it’s obvious the cruise is going to be continued in the next volume, his editor should have suggested Pope trim some of the fat and combine two or three sub-adventures into a single book.
January 1, 2025
The second tier of Napoleonic fiction
Decent adventure, but reads like a bad episode of a 60s tv show. The good guys run goofy gambits, win every fight and only a token red shirt gets it in the end.
The details on this one:
Ship: HMS Calypso
Crew: A new fourth lieutenant who plays the flute to replace Brown who became the first officer (in 10 novels) to die under Ramage’s watch.
Love Interest: still the Marchesa, but at the end of the previous novel it appeared she had come to the Caribbean to see him, but no mention is made of it.
Decent adventure, but reads like a bad episode of a 60s tv show. The good guys run goofy gambits, win every fight and only a token red shirt gets it in the end.
The details on this one:
Ship: HMS Calypso
Crew: A new fourth lieutenant who plays the flute to replace Brown who became the first officer (in 10 novels) to die under Ramage’s watch.
Love Interest: still the Marchesa, but at the end of the previous novel it appeared she had come to the Caribbean to see him, but no mention is made of it.
October 7, 2013
Captain, the Lord Ramage, captures two bomb ketches and uses them to attack 3 French frigates in port loading French Artillary troops and awaiting deployment to some 'most secret' sandy destination--Ramage and his cohorts destroy/capture the French and discover the ultimate destination. Good, enjoyble reading!
July 14, 2019
The book starts with Ramage capturing a couple of ‘Bomb Ketches’ and then making use of them to further his orders to create disruption to the French throughout the Mediterranean. The story is quite quick to read, but I still found it very enjoyable.
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July 28, 2009Enjoyed
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